Updated "Other Weblogs" Listing

When you take a close look at the lower right of the main weblog page, you will maybe notice that the "Other Weblogs" listing has changed. I used to list the first 3 entries from most of the other blogs I'm reading, but each in its own little list. The problem with that was that sometimes authors would stop to write on their weblog and I started to move things in and out depending on that.

With the new "mini planet" (a Zope product btw) I've hacked up over the last few days, the first 3 entries of each blog are mixed into a big list, sorted by date. Seems to me to be a good compromise between showing the less active but still interesting blogs, but not loosing track of what's moving. Comments welcome!

Something to write home about

Saturday morning I woke up early and took the morning flight to Munich. I slept all through the afternoon, then we went to a student party, where everybody talked about music. I declared Montepucci to be my favourite opera composer (that resulted in a bit of confusion) and met some friends of Elenis I had only heard about. Next morning we took the train to Switzerland.

Over here it's nice and green. It rained a couple of times, all the other times the weather can't quite decide if it should give us clouds or sun, cold or warm. We went to see the library of the convent of St.Gallen (Stiftsbibliothek), where they showed us some books that were about 1200 years old. Tomorrow we will make a trip by train to the mountains.

Mountains and a Lake

Tuesday morning we woke up early and took the train to Grisonia (Graubünden), one of the mountainous cantons of Switzerland. We had thought about getting my fathers car, because the trip would have been a bit shorter. In the end, going by train proved to be a nice idea, much more relaxed and much easier to look out of the window. In Chur (the capital of Grisonia) we changed trains to go to Ilanz, a small city in the mountains with a beautiful old walled city ring. The ride up there through the canyon of the river Rhine is wonderful.

Up there we met with friends and family, enjoyed stories, food and drink. We went on by car to Laax to visit with more family. On the way back we took that ages-old traditional transport, the swiss postal coach (Postauto), then we went back by train down the Rhine's wide valley.

Public transport in Switzerland is very nice - if it weren't for the prices. If you live there, you can buy a pass that is valid for a year and cuts prices in half. But for a visitor, the prices are truly breathtaking.

On Wednesday we did a bit of chocolate shopping in St.Gallen, said good bye to everybody and went on the train back to Munich. We left the train again in Lindau on Lake Constance (Bodensee). Lindau is the bavarian stronghold on the lake. The oldest part of the city is built on an island in the lake (connected with dams and bridges for trains and cars). We had a stroll around and a good look at the lake. The weather was very sticky and warm, even though it was mostly cloudy. After our little excursion we took the train to Munich where we arrived just in time to shop for dinner and for todays food (since today is public holiday where shops are closed).

The Blue Containers

They have arrived while I was away. I had already seen them for some
time in more central parts of Athens, but now that I returned from
Germany, I found them in my neighbourhood too: The blue containers for
recycleable waste. They came together with a letter from our mayor, a
little brochure, and a special bag (to collect such waste, not clear if
the bag goes into the container too, maybe I should read the brochure).
This means that our household will be able to dispose of some things in
a manner that is more soothing to the ecologically aware mind...

Smoke Booth

No, pictured in this mellow photo are no phone booths. What you see
here, is the smokers corner in the Munich airport gate area (notice the
"cigarette sign" on top?). Each nicotine addicted person is entitled to
their own glass cage, probably well separated from each other, as not to
raise any mistaken ideas of social behavior.

The cabins must have ventilation or some kind of vacuum cleaner
sucking up the fumes. Still I noticed them from the cold smoke smell
while walking by. No ventilation can be good enough. Good that I am a
non-smoker.

Cover Quotes Insults

Currently I'm reading "Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson. Got it in Switzerland in a moments decision when I saw it in a bookshop, really like it of course, though I'm not through yet. While I'm reading it, I wonder about the cover quotes. Cover quotes seem to be by law stupid and meaningless. But I wonder if something like "Races along like an expert thriller" on a Gibson novel should really be taken as an insult. So, it's just "like" an expert thriller? Is it almost as good as that "whodunnit" by that "expert" guy who pushes out 4 crime novels a year? The other quotes are almost as confused and stupid as that. Why do book publishers think they need that?

Bunker Wanted

A few weeks ago, r0sk (of #bsdcow, his blog is in the list) wrote about
something they call "bunker" over there in .es: A few people coming
together for an evening to hack on something, be it something useful
(someone's pet project) or just taking something apart, seeing how it
works (and maybe getting it back together). As I came home from work
yesterday evening it occured to me that this is *just* what I would need
here.

Potatoes for Art

Old news from before my trip: I had visited the "art athina" exhibition
together with Thanassis (McKellaris) of HelMUG fame. It was one big
circus of galleries showing off "their" artists works of art. I believe
that everybody should try to make their own sense (or nonsense) out of
modern art, even if I could, I wouldn't be anybody's guide. But there was at least a *bit* of something interesting, with potatoes and apparently some old fashioned censorship...

Code on the Go

Is it just me? I like to write code while I am in public transport. Back in Switzerland, I used to commute by train, 1.5 hours each trip. A large part of that was in a clean, comfortable, and stuffed to the last place intercity train. I was often sitting there with barely enough place to move my elbows, but hacking away on my laptop (first a PowerBook 1400, a little later a Titanium PowerBook G4). I wrote most of the code for the SMS chat at STAR TV Switzerland like that.

On Saturday I flew back from Munich to Athens. I was a bit tired, not all too happy (not because of coming home, but because of that other story, personal, therefore not on the blog in public) but there I was, happily hacking away on a little Zope product (the one that lists the "other weblogs" on my blog's main page), extending little bits and ends on it.

I've noticed that I'm not doing equally well on whatever kind of hacking task I attempt while coding on the go. Debugging or writing tests doesn't work so well, and I probably wouldn't attempt to design some boring and solid system. But fleshing out some new feature, or driving through some new functionality by clicking in lines of new code, that works just fine (even if it sometimes results in a bit of spaghetti code). It's the kind of job where I am happy to leave in a comment "# TODO: add code to check these input values here". I'll come back to clean up these things later, the drive on the drive is getting the first line down on digital canvas.

Update: some of the post was missing, added all the text after "even if it sometimes results..." just now.

Your Papers!

On my Sunday evening walk along the coast between Falliron and Kalamaki
I came across a surreal scene. It was evening, the sun was just setting
behind Pireus in a burst of orange and pink light. The promenade was
full of families with little children taking a walk, and people who had
spent the day swimming and sunbathing at the beach and who were now
heading home. I passed by a couple of men from (judging by what I
could grasp from their talk) Romania, who had been at the beach.
They were walking towards the Kalamaki tram station. Suddenly there
popped up a policeman in the middle of the flow of people...

Laurie Anderson at the Herodion

I really enjoyed the concert yesterday evening. Laurie Anderson makes
music that left me (and I think most of the audience) in a meditative
state of mind. We listened to a lot of the lyrics, had a good chuckle
from time to time on some of the sarcasm and politics, even picked up
the odd message. Towards the 2nd part of the concert, when the music
turned to quieter songs, we would have wished for easier seeting,
something to recline and cushion into. 1800 years old marble is a
spiritual venue, but it makes for hard benches on your ass (with a thin
cushion).

European Music Festival

Looks like the European Music Festival is on again, with concerts all over Athens (and some other places too) every evening till Saturday. Here is a program of concerts in Athens. The weather is fine, so let's see how much fun we can scoop up!

Going Home is Hot

Usually I take one bus and then walk 10-15 minutes to get home. Now with the heat wave in Athens I try to do without the walk. I take the bus, switch to the Metro, then take another bus. Takes longer, but less heat. Today I walked into the Metro station and they had no power. There was reduced light on and the passengers were informed that trains would be "a couple minutes late". The "end of time" athmosphere indeed lastet only a short time, then full lights came on again.

A minute or two more and the train came. It took me along, wondering what would happeen if power failed again with me in there.

Due to the heat wave electricity consumption is at a record high. We're half expecting a blackout. We're also being asked to save on energy to avoid that. Indeed at the office all unncessary lights are out and at home I follow the same line.

In other news, temperatures should start to drop any moment now. Fine with me, for now we've seen enough of those 44-47 degrees C.

The Good Thing about the Heat Wave

The Good Thing(TM) about the heat wave here in Athens is of course that... now we can talk about the weather without feeling like a total bore - it's exciting! (It also appears a few degrees less hot today, very nice.)